Waiting
by Mira Westing
Summary: A short drabble about the hobbit lass Frodo left behind. Just a one-parter. Please R&R.


Title: Waiting   
  
Author: Mira Westing  
  
Warnings: Standard. I don't own a single one of the characters and I'm not making money off of them. I'm just using them from my own purposes for just a minute or two.  
  
Summary: A short story of the hobbit lass Frodo left behind when he went on his quest. Just a short drabble that I came up with because, now that I'm broken and swollen, I have nothing better to do.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
  
  
  
You watch them leave and they don't see you there. Although it isn't raining, it occurs to you that it ought to be on a day like that one. Because no matter what Frodo Baggins has told you and the rest of the Shire you know that he isn't going where he said he was going. You know because he asked you to wait. There would have been no need for waiting had he been telling the truth.  
  
But you do wait. A promise is a promise and even when the truth that lurked behind his lies comes to you through the gossip mill, you wait. You think of him often - always, really.   
  
It is a long year. Your father calls it a 'good, long' year and you reply that you can see no good in it. He chuckles and tells you it is only an expression. It is a bad expression, you think but do not say aloud. Afterall, you have no right to be mourning. Frodo asked you to wait but he made no true commitment to you. He has not spoken to your father nor did he ever actually pay you public court. All you have in reality are a few occasions of sweet but fumbling kisses and the conversations you exchanged in secret places.  
  
And you don't, in truth, know him. Oh - you've known *of* him your entire life. Odd Frodo Baggins. Crazy Frodo Baggins. Frodo Baggins who granted you your first kiss underneath an apple tree deep in the night after some party or another. You loved him then, heedless of his peculiarities. You loved him later, as well, when he confessed, softly, over a desk of musty old books, his affections for you. You loved the blush that stained his cheeks and the shake in his voice.  
  
He was too old for you, really. Odd that the forty-something Baggins heir would find himself smitten with the twenty-something daughter of no one special. But your match would have be accepted. And you told him so. You might not have been of age but hobbits have been known to marry younger than you. So, between gentle caresses, you cajoled.   
  
He stood firm. 'Not now, Love.' 'I need your patience, my sweet darling.' By the time you know the reason he'd postponed, your life has changed, too. Your home is a different place. Once the outside world had slipped into yours, you doubt it will ever fully retreat. The Shire is changed, hobbits are changed, you are changed.  
  
That's when Frodo returns. He's ill but he does not ask for you. Rose Cotton, soon to be Gamgee, seems to take over his care and you are pleased that she is there. The two of you, previously only vague acquaintances, will become the closest of friends over the next months. She understands your anxiety over Frodo's condition. Even if there was no genuine exchange of promises between you, Rosie sees clearly the claim that Frodo Baggins has on your heart.  
  
He isn't the hobbit who left the Shire. You don't know this new Frodo. You hardly knew the old one. But you still love him and you've no doubt that he loves you as well. Because he doesn't visit you or send for you or even talk to you on the rare occasions when he happens upon you in town but he watches you. His eyes catch on you and you share a long silent gaze. You still think that he will come to you eventually. There are whispers about his condition throughout Hobbiton, he's not recovering as he should, he's sickly and corrupted by his time with the Ring. You ignore this chatter and continue to wait. Waiting for Frodo Baggins, waiting for your love.  
  
It is almost another year before you accept the truth. You don't even cry. On the pretense of visiting with Rosie Gamgee, you visit Bag End. It is time to bid farewell to Frodo and you do it graciously. He's broken your heart but it wasn't his aim. And his heart, you see, is breaking as well. You were the token he carried with him. A not quite lover he clung to at night, deep in the dark of the Ring. He isn't strong enough to love you any longer but he would like nothing more, were he able.  
  
So you say your good-byes and do not see him again. Not even when he, shortly thereafter, leaves the Shire for good.   
  
And the years pass. Slower now because of the melancholy that takes you over. You think of Frodo, handsome and strong, and try not to see him as he was...after. You mourn although you know for sure that he is better off. You mourn for yourself.   
  
But life does go on. Sisters marry. Older sister first, then younger. You are still quite young, yourself, but your youth feels forced and you wear it badly.   
  
But life does go on. You laugh because parties are frequent and large in the years after the War of the Ring. Hobbits take their happiness back with force and you benefit from that. There are tears as well - silent, in your pillow. Tears you don't really deserve. Not truly. The only words he ever spoke were to ask you to wait - it was not a promise, you simply misread him.  
  
But life does go on. There is a strange and wonderful day when you look to your right at the hobbit who has been there for so long you'd ceased to notice him...and find love. There he has been - childish and open and, perhaps, a little naughty. But he is as hurt as you, moreso probably, and the day you realize this is the day that you feel the truth seep back into you.  
  
Love is different the second time around. It's more playful and public but also more serious. It is not nearly as chaste. Your adolescent impatience is long gone but he pays court ardently, moving your love along at a break-neck pace. Soon, he's hinting at marriage and you aren't at all opposed to it.   
  
You marry in the Spring, the last of your father's daughters to do so. And you look at yourself in the mirror on you wedding night and smile. 'Estella Bolger,' you say, 'you are a wife.' And you are. A happy wife who bears a fat, happy child before the close of your first year of marriage.  
  
One morning, one very lazy morning, you are lying in bed with your husband and son and your thoughts stray to Frodo Baggins - something they have not done in a long while. Perhaps you tense or sigh, but suddenly your husband is facing you, eyes searching and a little sad.   
  
But there is no reason for sadness. Estella Brandybuck has known grief, will probably know it again. More than that, you have known love. One can, you see then, love more than once and you love your Merry so much your heart swells and grows with it. You touch his lips gently and he knows, like he always does, what you are thinking. You both cry a bit but your tears are sweet like the baby pressed between you. Because Meriadoc Brandybuck would never ask you to wait. You'll walk beside him all the days of your life - that is what he would want.  
  
It is what you want. 


End file.
